Google Realtime Search: a new home with new tools — When we first introduced our real-time search features last December, we focused on bringing relevance to the freshest information on the web. Our goal was to provide real-time content from a comprehensive set of sources, integrated right into your usual search results.

Google Realtime: The Good News & the Bad News (Corrected) — Everyone says Google doesn't “get” social media. What Google gets better than anyone else in the world, though, is search - combine the two and the company may have found a winning recipe. — Today Google announced (our coverage) …

Gmail users place 1M calls in 24 hours — It looks like Gmail users are already taking advantage of the cheap calling that Google launched yesterday. The company announced via Twitter that there were 1 million calls placed from Gmail in 24 hours. — The feature is particularly attractive …

Use Gmail to make VoIP calls: Hands-on review — With Google's Wednesday rollout to Gmail, the built-in Google Talk chat app is finally getting its own voice. Specifically, a plugin that lets you surface a dial pad so you can launch VoIP calls from the Gmail.com in-box, or from within iGoogle.

ITunes Music Update: Think Social, Not Streaming — When will Apple launch a cloud-based version of the iTunes music service that lets you stream your songs to wherever you are, whenever you want? — Probably not at Apple's newest product launch next week.

Sneak Peak at Yelp Deals — Yelp's mission from the beginning has been to connect consumers with — great local businesses. Members of the Yelp community have been and — continue to be the driving force behind that mission. Historically, we — have provided value to our 36 million monthly unique visitors by

What Digg Needs To Change To Keep Its Users Happy — The new Digg is making splashes all over the world of social media, and many of the waves are not happy. Many, many people from power users to the regular joes are complaining about everything from the new button styles to the layout in the new website.

Netflix App Now Supports iPhone and iPod Touch — As promised, Netflix has finally updated their App Store app [iTunes Link] to support the iPhone and iPod Touch in addition to the iPad. … Netflix originally launched the app for the iPad-only and later revealed that the App would come for all iOS devices.

TweetDeck User Streams Preview: Open To All — I think it's fair to say that the reaction to our User Streams Preview version of TweetDeck was extremely positive. — TechCrunch called it “Crack for Real-time Web Junkies”. The Next Web summarised their experience succinctly as “Twitter in real time.

Google Goes Hunting for a Music Boss — Anybody want to run the music division of the world's biggest media company? Because Google is hiring: The search giant is casting about for an executive to run its music service, which doesn't actually exist yet. — Industry sources tell me Google …

Am I mayor yet? — We made a quick yet long-awaited tweak to our apps today. When you're getting close to winning a Mayorship (within 10 check-ins), you'll now see how far away you are from ousting the current Mayor. You'll see the count in the post check-in screen when you check into a place.

Exchange ActiveSync to arrive on Hotmail on Monday — REDMOND, Wash.—One of the features promised as part of the latest update to Hotmail will arrive next week, CNET has learned. — In an interview here on Thursday, Microsoft's Dharmesh Mehta told CNET that Exchange ActiveSync …

The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves — Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation …

Has Google Purged Places Of Yelp? All Signs Point To Yes. — Well, this is curious. — From our checks, it seems like Google has completely omitted Yelp reviews from Google Places. As you may recall, Yelp has been frustrated by Google's recent decision to pump up its Places service with Yelp's content— without Yelp's consent.

MPEG LA: H.264 Streaming Will Be Free Forever — MPEG LA is announcing today that it will continue to offer a royalty-free license for the H.264 video codec for video sites that offer free video streams to consumers “during the entire life of this (l)icense.”